They call Alvarez "Canelo," or "Cinnamon," for his red hair and freckled face. He is Mexico's most popular fighter, a guy who brings droves of fans--many of them senioritas--to see his fights. He is 22. Young and relatively inexperienced: 42-0-1 but not against elite competition. He is still a little green but he is not a pretender. He's not. He is a big puncher and a kid who can cut off the ring. He is a light middleweight, while Mayweather has a smaller frame so they will have to figure out at what weight they will fight: that will help dictate the outcome. But that can wait for now. The real news is that boxing finally has a fight that all fans will be interested in. I've spent time with Alvarez in the gym and watched Canelo move his feet with a deceptive quickness, and hit the heavy bag with a ferocity that should worry the kid from Grand Rapids. I can still hear the thud of his gloves smacking that leather.

Finally. A real fight. Not another $69.95 pay-per-view bore-fest with Floyd Mayweather Jr. "fighting" a nobody. And stealing our money. It is not Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao. But no one much cares about that fight anymore. But Mayweather-Alvarez might be the next best thing. It will be the boxing event of the year. On September 14, 2013. In Vegas.

Showtime, who is supposedly paying Mayweather $200 million for six fights, probably put the pressure on Money May to challenge himself, to try and win back the fans, so they don't blow their investment and reputation. The public can just stomach so many blowouts, and while they said more than a million people watched his last fight, if it's true, the people walked away — yet again — disappointed. Showtime needed an event, not another sham fight.

Mayweather has always picked his opponents in a smart but cynical way: he wants a guaranteed win. It's made him into the richest athlete in the world, but also unloved. Nobody likes a blowhard bully. And as he grows older, he needs the adulation; he needs some confirmation of greatness. Yeah, yeah, Mayweather might have picked Canelo because the Mexican slugger is young and inexperienced: he wanted to fight Canelo before the youngster got good enough to beat him.

Canelo has never fought someone with such sublime defensive skills, and such an unparalleled boxing IQ. Mayweather will probably win. That's my bet. He will dance and run and hit him with pot shots and go for 12 rounds and, probably — probably — win a decision. But it'll be a fight. Canelo will move forward, and he will miss — a lot — but when he lands a punch here or there, his punches will hurt. And it's really that basic. Canelo is naturally bigger so those punches will matter more. Cinnamon is no over-the-hill Shane Mosley or Miguel Cotto, or pretender like Victor Ortiz and Robert Guerrero.